The Hour of the Shadow
A reporter. That was what Lee Seo-hyun was — and there was one thing only she could do.
Steering public opinion, of course.
"Oh, and this as well."
This time it wasn't a stack of documents. It was a sports backpack stuffed with clothes.
"I did some shopping on the way here. Even if you're not human anymore, you could at least dress like one."
"……"
Come to think of it, he had a point. Tae-jun was still wrapped in the same straw matting he'd worn when he first descended. Thanks to a demon's peculiar authority, it bore no trace of blood — but in the modern world, he still looked nothing like a person.
"I figured you wouldn't come shopping if I asked, so I just picked some out myself. No complaints, I trust?"
"Reasonable."
For once, Ki Tae-jun acknowledged it without resistance. He accepted the clothes without hesitation.
"Contact me when your prey runs low."
"And even before that, you'll take my calls."
"If I can."
With that curt reply, Tae-jun melted into the darkness. He wanted to hunt at least one more.
"Haah… this is insane. Genuinely insane."
The joint investigation headquarters' conference room sat empty, its lights burning well past midnight. Beneath them, Detective Kang Hyung-joon clawed at his hair in frustration. Scattered across the table before him were case reports flooding in from every corner of the country — each one horrific, each one a mystery.
"Missing again? Where this time?"
At Hyung-joon's irritable question, his junior detective Choi Min-soo shook his head wearily.
"Opo-eup, Gwangju-si, Gyeonggi Province."
"The victim?"
"Park Sang-chul, seven prior convictions for rape. The severed electronic monitoring anklet was found at his home."
"The scene?"
"…The same."
The word same coming out of Choi Min-soo's mouth had become terrifyingly familiar by now. Blood everywhere, black powder left behind, no body.
"I'm losing my mind, I swear. That makes nine already. Nine! Ten if you count Cho Geun-shik!"
Hyung-joon slammed his fist down on the desk. His fury was understandable. Over the past several weeks, disappearances had erupted across the nation — dismissed at first as simple runaways. But then every single missing person turned out to have prior sex crime convictions, and once common threads emerged at the locations themselves, the case shifted into an entirely different phase. That was precisely why the investigation had been converted into a joint operation under National Police Headquarters command.
"And the black powder? Same story there too?"
"Yes. The National Forensic Service confirmed it matches the victim's DNA in this case as well."
"……"
Hyung-joon was left speechless. This defied all common sense. The victim's blood and DNA were at the scene — and yet the body itself had vanished without a trace. Had it simply evaporated?
"CCTV?"
"We've been checking continuously since the Cho Geun-shik case, but it's useless. Every location where a crime occurred was a blind spot, or else…"
Min-soo trailed off again and held out another photograph — a still from a surveillance camera, completely swallowed by black fog, nothing identifiable.
"…Again?"
A deep sigh. Ten men, including Cho Geun-shik, had vanished as if swallowed whole. All of them convicted sex offenders — which only drew the public's gaze more intensely upon the case. For the police as an institution, the current climate was unwelcome, to say the least.
"So no direct evidence this time either?"
"…None."
At Min-soo's answer, Hyung-joon laughed hollowly. "Heh. What even is this…"
Twenty years as a detective. He'd seen every kind of case imaginable, but nothing like this. It felt as if some demon had appeared and was dragging people off to Hell itself.
"We can't put a tail on every sex offender in the country. What the hell is going on?"
His murmur echoed through the empty conference room like a ghost.
"T-Team Leader!"
At that very moment, a detective from the joint investigation team stumbled breathlessly into the room.
"What now? What is it this time?"
"It's — they just found another victim, sir."
"…What?"
A new victim had been discovered only a short while ago. And now two in a single day?
"This is… what on earth…"
They were now confronting a phenomenon that no amount of common sense could explain.
· 11 convicted sex offenders, including Cho Geun-shik, vanish without a trace — "Gruesome scenes, bodies evaporated"
· Victim DNA detected in 'black powder' — mystery deepens as 'Shadow' sighting reports emerge
· Amid judicial distrust, public opinion defending 'private vengeance' spreads — experts warn, "It is merely another crime"
[Magazine F | Reporter Lee Seo-hyun] South Korea has been plunged into unprecedented fear and confusion. Over recent months, a string of notorious convicted sex offenders has been disappearing one after another.
The problem is that these disappearances are anything but simple runaways. According to police sources, every location presumed to be a crime scene was uniformly gruesome. Large quantities of blood and traces of struggle were discovered — yet the victims' bodies could be found nowhere. One scene-investigation expert clicked his tongue, saying, "It's as if the corpses simply evaporated."
According to investigative materials obtained exclusively by Magazine F, the serial disappearances share several defining features.
First, every victim has prior convictions for heinous sex crimes such as sexual assault and rape. Some were subject to electronic monitoring, yet slipped the surveillance net freely — only to become targets themselves.
Second, an unidentified substance known as 'black powder' has been found at every scene. The National Forensic Service's precise analysis astonishingly detected each incident's victim DNA in the powder. Its detailed composition and origin remain entirely unknown.
Third, witnesses at some scenes claim to have glimpsed an unidentified entity — the so-called 'Shadow.' One witness, requesting anonymity, testified: "Something like black smoke moved in the shape of a person. It vanished in an instant — I thought I'd seen a ghost."
Amid this climate, all manner of speculation and rumor about the Shadow's identity is spreading through online communities and social media. Some portray the Shadow as a 'dark hero' delivering judgment the law cannot, and voices defending private vengeance are growing louder.
Experts, however, express alarm. Criminal psychologist Professor Park Mi-sun stated, "This is an extreme expression of distrust in the justice system," adding that "private vengeance only begets another crime, and can never be justified…" and so —
…
…
…
"…Unbelievable."
In her darkened office, Lee Seo-hyun murmured under her breath. Her own article glowed on the monitor — barely a few hours old, and already racking up astronomical view and comment counts.
I expected a certain amount of this, but not right out of the gate…
She had already prepared contingencies, sketching out one strategy after another. The plan had been to seed it across the major communities and social media through a fleet of prepped sock-puppet accounts. Now it was unnecessary. Thousands of people were spreading it of their own accord.
Well, it is an unprecedented case.
Every internet forum, every social platform, every YouTube channel — the entire online world was drowning in talk of the incident, of the 'Shadow' that Lee Seo-hyun herself had named.
Scrolling through the flood of reactions, Seo-hyun smiled bitterly. The vast majority of people were ecstatic — over her brother-in-law's, no, over the Shadow's every move.
…Is this really the right thing?
For an instant, the thought surfaced unbidden. But she quickly shook her head.
Who cares?
The world had already lost its ability to regulate itself. Even at this very moment, countless pieces of human garbage were being manufactured or released back into society. Which meant one more cleaner like her brother-in-law could hardly make things worse.
Ding!
Just then, a new article notification popped up — one of the police-response articles she had alerts set for.
A predictable response if there ever was one. Seo-hyun snorted with laughter.
If they want to come out swinging like that, it's nothing but good for us.
The police's empty denial would do nothing but fan the rumor further.
…Well then, seems we've boarded the same ship, brother-in-law.
There was no climbing out now. They had waded in far too deep — into his… no, into their desperate drama of revenge.
Don't go running off alone this time, the way you did fifteen years ago.
Darkness hung thick over the city. The hour of the Shadow had arrived.